"Darwin was the first to use data from nature to convince people that evolution is true, and his idea of natural selection was truly novel. It testifies to his genius that the concept of natural theology, accepted by most educated Westerners before 1859, was vanquished within only a few years by a single five-hundred-page book. On the Origin of Species turned the mysteries of life's diversity from mythology into genuine science." -- Jerry Coyne

Monday, July 21, 2014

The Catholic Church: The world's largest sexual child abuse organization. Note to myself: continue watching this at 28.50.

Published on Jul 3, 2014

Documentary | Frontline: Secrets of the Vatican (2014)
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Pope Benedict's final days and Francis' battle to set the church on a new path. Pope Benedict made history when he announced his resignation, becoming the first Pope to step down voluntarily in six hundred years. In his wake he left a bitterly divided Vatican mired in scandals. But is Benedict's successor, Pope Francis, taming the forces that helped destroy Benedict's papacy? Is he succeeding in lifting the Church out of crisis? Nearly a year in the making, this special hour and a half Frontline goes inside the Vatican--one of the world's most revered and mysterious institutions--to unravel the remarkable series of events that led to the resignation that shook the world. Through interviews with those at the very heart of what happened--cardinals, priests, convicted criminals, police, prosecutors and whistle-blowers-Frontline gives a first-hand account of the final days of Benedict's papacy and the current battle to set the Church on a new path under Francis.

"I'm loving this fiery polemic. Hard hitting, brutally honest and without a shred of political correctness! Not to mention humorous." -- Brian

Evolution does not need defending because it's a basic scientific fact. The religious alternative, magical intelligent design creationism, is the most ridiculously stupid idea in the history of the human race. Creationism is more than an idiotic fantasy, it's a disease, a severe mental illness. Why do Christians deny the established truth of evolution, despite massive, powerful, and still growing evidence that's been accumulating for more than 150 years? There can be only one possible explanation. Christians (and their Muslim terrorist friends) are uneducated morons.

EVOLUTION: "The supporting evidence is abundant, various, ever increasing, solidly interconnected, and easily available in museums, popular books, textbooks, and a mountainous accumulation of peer-reviewed scientific studies." National Geographic

Evolution, ruining the fantasies of retards since 1859.

The religious attacks against America on 9/11/2001 changed everything. The time for sucking up to religious scum is over with.

Islam: The belief that you can attain a personal relationship with god through blowing yourself up.

"If there's a paper in one of the big journals that discusses more evidence for evolution, there is a creationist hack somewhere who'll quickly write it up and lie about it." -- PZ Myers

If you look at the universe and study the universe, what you find is that there is no evidence that we need anything other than the laws of physics and the other laws of science to explain everything we see. There's absolutely no evidence that we need any supernatural hand of god.-- Lawrence Krauss, World-Renowned Physicist

There is probably no other notion in any field of science that has been as extensively tested and as thoroughly corroborated as the evolutionary origin of living organisms.-- Encyclopedia Britannica

Faith, no one word personifies the absolute worst and most wicked properties of religion better than that. Faith is mind-rot. It’s the poison that destroys critical thinking, undermines evidence, and leads people into lives dedicated to absurdity. It’s a parasite regarded as a virtue.-- PZ Myers, University of Minnesota biologist

Religion is the antithesis of science, an anesthetic for the mind that disables critical thought and encourages the acceptance of inanity as fact, and wishful thinking as evidence.-- PZ Myers

Those of us who have for years politely concealed our contempt for the dangerous collective delusion of religion need to stand up and speak out. Things are different after September 11th. Let's stop being so damned respectful!-- Richard Dawkins

"Creation science has not entered the curriculum for a reason so simple and so basic that we often forget to mention it: because it is false, and because good teachers understand exactly why it is false. What could be more destructive of that most fragile yet most precious commodity in our entire intellectual heritage -- good teaching -- than a bill forcing honorable teachers to sully their sacred trust by granting equal treatment to a doctrine not only known to be false, but calculated to undermine any general understanding of science as an enterprise?"-- Stephen Jay Gould

FAITH. No one word personifies the absolute worst and most wicked properties of religion better than that. Faith is mind-rot. It’s the poison that destroys critical thinking, undermines evidence, and leads people into lives dedicated to absurdity. It’s a parasite regarded as a virtue. -- PZ Myers

The plain fact is, religion must die for mankind to live. The hour is getting very late to be able to indulge in having key decisions being made by religious people, by irrationalists, by those who would steer the ship of state not by a compass, but by the equivalent of reading the entrails of a chicken.

Faith means making a virtue out of not thinking. It's nothing to brag about. And those who preach faith and enable and elevate it are our intellectual slave holders, keeping mankind in a bondage to fantasy and nonsense that has spawned and justified so much lunacy and destruction.

Religion is dangerous because it allows human beings who don't have all the answers to think that they do. Most people would think it's wonderful when someone says "I'm willing Lord, to do whatever you want me to do". But since there are no actual gods talking to us, that void is filled in by people with their own corruptions and limitations and agendas.

This is why rational people, anti-religionists, must end their timidity and come out of the closet and assert themselves. And those who consider themselves only moderately religious really need to look in the mirror and recognize that the solace and comfort that religion brings you actually comes at a terrible price.

If you belonged to a political party or a social club that was tied to as much bigotry, misogyny, violence and sheer ignorance as religion is, you'd resign in protest. To do otherwise is to be an enabler, a mafia wife for the true devils of extremism that draw their legitimacy from the millions of their fellow followers.

-- Bill Maher

Evolution poses a further threat to Christianity, though, a threat that goes to the very heart of Christian teaching. Evolution means that the creation accounts in the first two chapters of Genesis are wrong. That's not how humans came into being, nor the cattle, nor the creeping things, nor the beasts of the earth, nor the fowl of the air. Evolution could not have produced a single mother and father of all future humans, so there was no Adam and no Eve. No Adam and Eve: no fall. No fall: no need for redemption. No need for redemption: no need for a redeemer. No need for a redeemer: no need for the crucifixion or the resurrection, and no need to believe in that redeemer in order to gain eternal life. And not the slightest reason to believe in eternal life in the first place.-- Paula Kirby

It takes nothing more than a child of a few years to understand the incompatibility of understanding how the world works as opposed to essentially Santa Claus type thinking. It is a matter of honesty to admit that someone being raised from the dead is not a belief compatible with what we know of in science or that the myriad of religious beliefs from around the world are simply not square with the scientific knowledge of the day. It is rank dishonesty to pretend that science and religion are compatible while trying to backdoor tons of material as 'outside' the realm of science. -- KevinB

Darwin’s great insight that the vast diversity of life on earth arose over time from a common ancestor revolutionized scientific understanding, with substantial benefit to our economy and our well being. Today, evolutionary principles are the foundation of all of modern biology and have led to major advances in fields as diverse as molecular biology, developmental biology, genetics, behavior, and paleontology. Understanding evolution also allows us to identify genes underlying human illness, combat infectious diseases, mitigate impacts of invasive species, and control pathogens and pests of our crops and livestock.http://www.amnat.org/

The theory of evolution is a staggeringly beautiful and rather clever concept that aims to describe how animals, plants, bacteria and all other living things have adapted, and continue to adapt, to their surroundings. The theory allows mankind to perceive life's history down the eons and understand how and why all living things came to be.

Evolution is the grand unifying theory of biology. It is a solid core running through all modern research from molecular biology to genomics to ecology. Where once biology was a disjointed group of subjects whose main role seemed to be just to classify life into neat categories, it is now at the forefront of scientific research. Indeed, the study of heredity - genetics - is said to be leading mankind into a biotechnological golden age with ever-more potent pharmaceuticals, cleaner fuels and improved crops.

However, on religious issues there can be little or no compromise. There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God's name on one's behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both. I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in "A," "B," "C," and "D." Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of "conservatism".-- Senator Barry Goldwater

Religious people have a big problem. If they deny the science that has made their cults obsolete, they look like idiots. If they accept the discoveries of 21st century scientists, then they believe in a magic god fairy who never had anything to do. The only solution is they should grow up and throw out their childish god fantasy, but almost always they're too cowardly to accept reality.

If a scientific fact kills the cowardly heaven fantasy, what would cowards do? They would just deny the scientific fact. Also they would make absolutely no effort to study or understand what they're denying.

Scientists who believe in a religion are disgracing their profession. There’s nothing more anti-science than the childish idea there’s a god fairy with unlimited magical powers hiding somewhere in the universe.

America has the most scientifically illiterate population in the western world. 84% of Americans either completely reject evolution or they pollute evolution with supernatural magic. It’s an educational disgrace. In America young minds are destroyed by religious indoctrination long before their first science class, so they are unable to learn anything. The only possible solution I can think of is the complete eradication of Christian death cult from this country.

Christian morons, how does this heaven business work? If I understand your cowardly belief correctly, your soul (whatever that is) magically flies up to the clouds (or who knows where) and then magically transforms itself into your disgusting dead body, except now you're alive again, living in some magical place infested with other Christian idiots like yourselves. Jeebus must be waving his magic wand like crazy to make this bullshit work.

And your magical selves live forever in this fantasy land, for trillions and trillions of years. Long after the entire universe goes extinct, you're still alive playing with your harp, bored out of your fucking mind.

Magical intelligent design creationism is just a symptom of the mental illness called Christianity which is an out-of-control epidemic. The disease itself must be attacked and eradicated. Unfortunately unless the victim is very young, Christianity is virtually always incurable.

Evolution - ruining the fantasies of retards since 1859.

A recent poll shows that only 28% of America's high school biology teachers accept this basic scientific fact: The evolution of modern human apes from ancient apes was a completely natural process (god fairies had nothing to do with it).

The other 72% of biology teachers should be publicly humiliated and fired immediately. It's not fair to students to be stuck with an incompetent god-soaked science teacher.

Magical Intelligent Design Creationism is identical to Magical Bible Creationism. The only difference is the theocrats who are trying to destroy science education to accommodate their dead Jeebus like to use code words like "design" when they really mean "supernatural magic".

Science hard. Brain hurt.God easy. No think.

atheism=realitytheism=magic

theology=fairyology

“If you believe in Creationism, I just want to open my heart to you and say that you’re a fucking moron.” -- Marc Maron, comedian

From "The Making of the Fittest: DNA and the Ultimate Forensic Record of Evolution" by Sean B. Carroll:

Now, nearly 150 years later, we can see. We no longer look at Nature's diversity "as a savage looks at a ship." From the new DNA record, the evidence of the workings of the evolutionary process abounds. But many people--a great many--either do not see what scientists see, or do not believe what scientists have concluded.

I have borrowed the title of this chapter from the wonderful book Seeing and Believing by Richard Panek, about the invention of the telescope and how it changed our perception of the sky and our place in the universe. Like Darwin, Galileo's observations and ideas were rejected by authorities who had no use for new evidence or ideas. But, eventually, the observable evidence overwhelmed ideological resistance. For all of those who do see the overwhelming evidence of natural selection and life's descent from ancestors, and the immense span of time over which the story of life unfolded, it is, to put it mildly, baffling how so many still do not. It is absolutely astonishing and often infuriating that some take it so far as to deny the immense foundation of evidence and to slander all the human achievement that foundation represents.

With the facts on evolution's side, how can this doubt and denial persist, or even be growing, here at the outset of the twenty-first century?

If there's a paper in one of the big journals that discusses more evidence for evolution, there is a creationist hack somewhere who'll quickly write it up and lie about it.-- PZ Myers

Darwin anticipated problems with his theory. Modern science hasanswered them. Evolution by Natural Selection has been triumphantly vindicated as fact.

-- Richard Dawkins

Darwin matters because evolution matters. Evolution matters because science matters. Science matters because it is the preeminent story of our age, an epic saga about who we are, where we came from, and where we are going.

-- Michael Shermer

When we no longer look at an organic being as a savage looks at a ship, as something wholly beyond his comprehension; when we regard every production of nature as one which has had a long history; when we contemplate every complex structure and instinct as the summing up of many contrivances, each useful to the possessor, in the same way as any great mechanical invention is the summing up of the labour, the experience, the reason, and even the blunders of numerous workmen; when we thus view each organic being, how far more interesting - I speak from experience - does the study of natural history become! — Charles Darwin

Those who want magical creationism in a biology classroom are uneducated morons. Their opinion doesn't matter because they are just plain stupid. Only scientists and science teachers should be allowed to make decisions about science curriculums. That's how we wrote new public school science standards in Florida where I live. Real scientists made the decisions and they made evolution one of the big ideas of science. Of course they didn't stick any Christian magic in there. The only possible way to permanently end the Christian war against science education is to eradicate the Christian death cult which is the most idiotic fantasy ever invented.-- Human Ape

Evolution is important because it explains the entire history of life. Evolution is important because it's interesting, interesting enough to make students love science instead of being afraid of science. If Christian theocrats (AKA uneducated morons) had their way, students would learn how to hate science. -- Human Ape

It may be said that natural selection is daily and hourly scrutinising, throughout the world, every variation, even the slightest; rejecting that which is bad, preserving and adding up all that is good; silently and insensibly working, whenever and wherever opportunity offers, at the improvement of each organic being in relation to its organic and inorganic conditions of life. We see nothing of these slow changes in progress, until the hand of time has marked the long lapse of ages, and then so imperfect is our view into long past geological ages, that we only see that the forms of life are now different from what they formerly were.

-- Charles Darwin

I have given the evidence to the best of my ability; and we must acknowledge, as it seems to me, that man with all his noble qualities, with sympathy which feels for the most debased, with benevolence which extends not only to other men but to the humblest living creature, with his god-like intellect which has penetrated into the movements and constitution of the solar system--with all these exalted powers--Man still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.

-- Charles Darwin

Science flies you to the﻿ moon, religion flies you into buildings.

Are you a Christian who loves evolution? Then why do you worship a creationist? I’m talking about your dead decomposed Jeebus. Why do you worship an idiot?

‘Not everybody is as certain about the barbarity of the Ancient Hebrews as you guys are’

No indeed committed clowns stick fingers in ears chant ‘all things bright and beautiful’ over and over and totally ignore the scripture in their own badly translated instruction manual.

It is called ‘cherry picking what suits’, xians do it like breathing, only are very inept at thinking while they do so!

They accept all the other codswollop, but when uncomfortable they deny it or, actually try and excuse the inexcusable even though genocide is genocide and it matters not a jot how they go running to hide behind the voluminous skirts of ‘fistikated feelology’…they are condoning literary genocide…they are applauding the death of men, women and children….and actually get righteous about the cheap thrill that the described genocide delivers.

And it does not matter a further twitch of Beelzebub’s whiskers that the biblical stories are for the most part bronze age goat-herder imagination anyway, even though they also borrowed very heavily from earlier fairy tales from earlier versions of brain dead fairy stories to titillate the poor of knowledge, or the more numerous, hard of thinking.

*****************

This is a comment I wrote on a Christian's blog. Even though the Christian was pro-science he censored my comment.

Understatement of the year: "But for now I will leave it that the scientific consensus seems to be pointing in this direction"

Seems? Here's a quote from the Encyclopedia Britannica: "There is probably no other notion in any field of science that has been as extensively tested and as thoroughly corroborated as the evolutionary origin of living organisms."

"There are many people – probably the majority of Christians – who don’t believe what you believe the Bible is saying, therefore there is no conflict between science and Christianity."

Some facts.

Evolution is a basic fact of science. All life shares a common ancestor. The diversity of life is completely thanks to evolution by natural selection (and other natural mechanisms of evolution). Magical gods had absolutely nothing to do with the development of new species, including modern human apes. A god fairy did not invent evolution, use evolution, or guide evolution.

The most important Christian fantasy, the magical resurrection of the dead Jeebus into a stinking zombie, is the most anti-science idiocy ever invented. So it's extremely dishonest to say "there is no conflict between science and Christianity".

For a good reason virtually all of the best scientists in the world are atheists. An example is this quote from the physicist Lawrence Krauss: "If you look at the universe and study the universe, what you find is that there is no evidence that we need anything other than the laws of physics and the other laws of science to explain everything we see. There's absolutely no evidence that we need any supernatural hand of god."